


Bee More Kind

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Communication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gardens & Gardening, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Language, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 13:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15864930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: There is something ugly festering in the corner of Albus's heart-garden. It takes a talking cat, an abundance of toast, a little bit of bravery and Scorpius turning up on his doorstep to figure out exactly why it won't stop growing.





	Bee More Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to L, for being a swift beta! I listened to a lot of soft music while I wrote this, but particularly inspiring was Frank Turner's song, Be More Kind, which is where I got the title and punned it a bit. Bees and gardens? Get it? Ha. I hope you enjoy! Thank you!
> 
> Rated T for Language.

Hud, a town buried somewhere in the wilderness of Wales, is exactly what one would expect the only truly magical town left in Britain to look like. There are cosy cottages with ramshackle attachments arranged haphazardly on the roofs and poking out of the sides. Doors are painted purple and yellow, and flash warningly when the milkman skims over the wild lawns on his broom. Chimneys puff out plumes of feathery gold smoke and small explosions pepper the air.

There’s a small Square with a grey fountain, showering the clean cobbles with fresh, clear water. Around it, an abundance of shops and menageries and inns crowd the pavements, owners waving from the windows and swearing rudely at the weather when it turns bad. Hippogriffs graze in the surrounding fields, and stalls pop up here and there down the narrow, weathered lanes, littered with secretive wares.

On Albus’s third day in Hud, during what was supposed to be a casual, stress-free weekend away somewhere quiet, where he could finish off some deadlines for his job at the Quibbler and avoid his cousin’s manic wedding preparations, he falls in love.

Not with a person. And not with anything unseemly, either, now that a person has been disregarded.  

He’s trudging down a lane, boots caked with mud and his coat wrapped around his waist, when he spots a yellow bench through a hole in the thick hedge. He peers closer, absently registering the scratch on his cheek from a blossoming nettle. There’s a house in there, two stories, with square windows and a red roof and three chimneys. The door is yellow, too, but the paint is faded, and a lane leads down to what he presumes is the garden, but the grass needs work, and the plant pots are all empty.

It’s the garden that intrigues him the most. He thinks of the sunflowers on his windowsill at home, the planter full of damp soil that always soothes Albus to look at, and yet feels cramped and stifled.

He rocks back on his heels. Truth is, he’s been a little lonely these past few weeks. Months, if he’s honest. He’s still living with his mum and dad, and Lily’s driving him crazy, shooting him sly, smug looks because she’s moving out soon, living with her friends, and he isn’t. Dad always says there’s no time limit to these things, and Albus knows this, but still. Jamie’s gone to live with Ted - no surprises there - and Scorpius is off to all corners of the world, exploring and saving every magical creature he can get his hands on, thanks to his well-earned job at the Ministry. Louis is getting married, hence Albus’s impromptu holiday, which means he’s not really been around much either, and Albus can only guess that the trend will continue once he’s all moved out and being grown-up with his husband.

Not that Lysander is really a grown-up in anything but age, but still.

In terms of other friends - well, he hasn’t really got any. Frank Jr is working at Hogwarts, which means Albus rarely sees him. His family’s busy - Hugo just got a placement at a fancy new restaurant, and Rose is taking the world of literature by storm.

Mum and Dad have more time to themselves, now, and Albus thinks they like it that way. Dad has his vegetable patch and his cooking class that he teaches three times a week, as well as the Defence Tutoring he does in the garden at the Burrow. Mum’s looking at Quidditch Coaching, and getting back into journalism. They want to travel, see things that aren’t related to death and war and work and parenting.

Albus knows they don't want him gone, but he still feels a bit like he’s in the way at home. Clearly, they want to be off doing things, and Albus does as well, but he can’t very well do it all from his childhood bedroom.

Albus chews his lip and thinks, still peering through the hedge. There’s nobody living in the house, clearly, if the dark, dusty windows are anything to go by, and there’s no For Sale sign, but it shouldn’t be too hard to have a look into it all, even if he decides not to do it. You don't move house on a whim, after all.

But you can do research on a whim, Albus decides, starting hesitantly down the lane again, towards the Square this time. He plucks a blackberry off the hedge and eats it, and then recoils. He’s seen so many people do that around here in the last few days that he didn't even think before he put a bit of nature in his mouth. It doesn’t taste bad, but it’s undoubtedly weird.

“Oi, you!”

Albus does a double-take, craning his neck to find a couple of kids with a Fanged Frisbee in their hands staring at him. The one in charge, with all his hair swept to his side and a smudge of chocolate around his mouth, puffs up his chest.

“You’re that new guy from London! Where the Muggles are.”

Albus swallows the last of the blackberry and wipes his hand nervously on his jeans. He’s not really talked to teenagers since he was one, roughly four years ago, and even then he didn't do much talking.

“Uh, yeah. That’s me, I guess.”

The boy narrows his eyes. “You’ve been staying at the Piskie Inn. I’ve seen you there writing.”

Albus gets the sense that the boy absolutely wants to say something else, and he’s getting the courage up to blunder through the conversation. “What about it?”

The boy hesitates, then, but his friend elbows him in the back, muttering encouragement, and he finds his feet again. He puffs up even more, chin rising, and stares at Albus challengingly.

“You look like the Boy Who Lived.”

Albus pulls a face. It’s not a very dignified, adult sort of face, but it can’t be helped. It’s an ingrained reaction by now. The kids can’t be more than ten years each, and they’re shuffling closer now, trainers scuffling across the dirt, curiosity all over their faces.

“Yeah,” Albus says, sighing as his shoulders sag. “I get that a lot. In my house, though, I just call him the Dad Who Bothers Me.”

It’s a little bit satisfying, to see their bug-eyed reaction. He hides a grin, because he doesn’t have to hate this, the stupid amount of awe that people have for his dad - it’s well-deserved, even if it does get a bit tiring. It’s worse when it’s adults who don't have a shred of shame, or respect for boundaries, but with kids, it’s kind of cute. He doesn’t mind it now.

“Wicked,” breathes one of them. “Taz, that’s really a Potter.”

“I know it is,” hisses the leader, flapping a hand back at his mate. “I bloody well asked him, didn't I?”

Albus snorts, and throws them a cheerful wave. “Glad I cleared that up. I’m off to see a man about a house, now. Don't break any windows with that.”

He points at the Frisbee, and a little shove from his magic gets the thing airborne, throwing it down the lane in the opposite direction. It wheels through the air, snapping at nothing, and there’s a mad scramble and several cut-off swear words as the pack of teenagers go racing after it.

“You see that?” Albus hears one of them shout. “The Potters are bloody savage! Davy, you owe me a sickle!”

He snickers all the way to the Post Office. He’s not decided anything - not on a whim, remember - but he vaguely finds himself thinking that he’s going to like it here.

***

There is something ugly festering in the corner of Albus’s heart-garden. It was there when his heart-garden was merely a plant pot on his bedside table at Hogwarts, full of little shoots and stems, and it was there when he graduated to a long planter that sat in the windowsill of his childhood home, overflowing with sunflowers, and it’s there now, at the back of Albus’s new home in the town of Hud, where he moved two months ago. He’s spent those two months avoiding the boxes piled up around his mostly-empty cottage, and tending his heart-garden instead.

The front garden is just a neat, trimmed lawn and a yellow bench, the same yellow bench that drew Albus’s eye in the beginning, but the back garden is his heart-garden, a sacred place that nobody else will ever see. All wizards have them, big and small and wild and neat, humming with life, even when their own slowly fades. Some are terrariums, some are hanging baskets, some span acres and some fill rooftops. Heart-gardens are full of memories and the intricacies of human existence, the complexities that make up a person. Each seed is a new thought, each stem a new step towards growth.

Albus always tends his heart-garden in the mornings, when the sun is just barely visible over the rolling green hills, sponge-soft yellow rays cushioned with streaks of pink. It paints his heart in hues of gold, and settles the loneliness he carries with him in the cavity of his chest. He hasn’t missed a morning.

And yet the ugliness keeps growing.

It’s a dark, oozing mess of black and swampy green. It shouldn’t be there. A pungent scent surrounds the mess, not mould or decay, but _misery,_ reluctant to scrub away. It blackens one corner of the high stone wall like nicotine stains on fresh plaster, and it seems to grow in small increments with each passing day. The olive tree that curls its roots deep in front of that corner stands strong and tall, but Albus dreads the day he wakes to find blackness clinging to the malleable trunk, rotting the bark. Maybe it won’t happen, but he worries about it all the same.

His worry is the lemongrass that rings the paving stones, coarse and bitter at times.

He avoids the ugly corner of his heart-garden, focusing instead on the light green grass, which needs trimming, and the flowers climbing the trellis. He waters everything carefully, his watering can red and rimmed in rust, but he steers clear of the darkness. Plump honey-bees slumber on the petals of pale flowers, where his innocence can be found, and everything gleams with dew-drops. The ugliness continues to spread, little by little, almost unnoticeable. But Albus notices, because it’s _his_ heart-garden, after all, and the only person that should enter a wizard’s heart-garden is the wizard himself.

No heart-garden is the same, and nobody ever lets someone into their heart-garden on a whim. They are private, careful affairs, and only the owner should see them.

“An old-fashioned notion.”

Albus wrinkles his nose as he moves dusty books about on their shelves. Barley, a black cat who should very much not be able to talk, cleans his paw on top of the shelf, sitting quite firmly in the way. Albus had been fiddling around with a new potions recipe just last week, and when he blinked awake after the explosion, ears ringing, he found his cat standing over him with an expression of disdain and a disapproving tone of voice.

“Foolish boy,” the cat had said, and Albus can still remember the way Barley leapt up in shock and spat when Albus yelled bloody murder.

“I’m not answering you,” Albus says, despite the fact that he is, in fact, answering him. “You’ll be back to normal in no time, sooner if I can figure out a reversal recipe, or some kind of antidote. There’s got to be something to get you to shut up, but until then, I’m not going to be the guy who talks to his cat.”

He absolutely _is_ the guy who talks to his cat, even before his cat could talk back. Barley hums as though he senses this, making direct eye contact before lazily pushing one of Albus’s books off the shelf. It thuds to the floor in a halo of dust before Albus can swipe it out of thin air, and he glowers at his smug cat. Muttering under his breath, he goes back to his organising, before he remembers exactly what started this ridiculous conversation.

“Anyway, what’s it to you if I’m old-fashioned?”

“Owners shouldn’t be the only ones in their heart-gardens,” Barley says, blinking slowly at Albus. He’s got a voice like a distinguished butler, but Albus has no doubts that if he asked him to fetch some tea, Barley would pour it in his lap. “That’s how darkness takes root. Hearts should be open, not closed off, if you want them to grow.”

Albus looks down at the book on the floor, the wrinkled leather gleaming in a patch of sunlight. He bends to pick it up, turning the words over in his mind, and Barley leaps nimbly from the shelf and bats at his fingers, claws glinting dangerously.

“Beast,” Albus murmurs, pushing Barley gently away as he picks up the book. It’s not a book so much as an old potions journal, and Albus has yet to discover who it belonged to, but the pages and pages of experimental recipes and complaints read almost like the diary of an ancient person, someone from a time when ink and parchment was a luxury. Albus has a lot of books just like it, scavenged from old bookshops.

“Your friend, the blathering, excitable one, is on the porch,” Barley says, after a moment of sniffing the air while Albus broods in silence. “The one you think is too pretty for his own good.” Albus flushes a dull pink. “The one _I_ think is an imbecile.”

That’s not actually true. Barley adores Scorpius, but obviously, he isn’t going to admit it now that he can talk.

“You think everyone is an imbecile.” Albus scowls and shoos him away, cheeks still hot, and Barley stares at his hands as though Albus rolled them in manure first. He flicks his tail and darts past Albus towards the front door, where sure enough, someone is knocking.

Albus gives chase and opens the front door a crack, one foot blocking Barley’s escape. Barley goes outside all the time, but Albus would rather he didn't leap at Scorpius and start talking straight away, where anyone can see him.

Scorpius turns from where he was surveying the dirt road, and his face softens upon seeing him. He’s got his usual smile in place, and his hair glows a little in the sunlight. A smudge of ink sits pretty on his cheek, and Albus keeps his hands still so he won’t wipe it away. He’s like something out of an illustration, a storybook, and Albus doesn’t want to turn the page.

He lets out a breath. It’s been two months since he last saw Scorpius properly, without a haze of ash and green flames. It’s been hard, to say the least, not having Scorpius to talk to, but Albus has grown a bit used to it since they left Hogwarts. Adulthood, and all that.

“Don't be mad,” Scorpius says, smiling sheepishly, as if he doesn’t know that Albus can never be mad at him. “I know you sort of implied no visiting until you were all settled in, but it’s been forever, Al, and I miss you.” He’s whining a little now, playful and disgruntled, and then he pauses, staring at the crack in the door. “Why am I only allowed to see one eyeball right now?”

Albus pulls the door open wider so that Scorpius can see him, in all his dirt-stained, dusty glory, and Barley saunters out onto the porch, inspecting Scorpius’s shoes. He’s known Scorpius since Albus got him as a kitten, and Albus highly suspects that Barely prefers Scorpius to him, if the way he allows himself to be scooped up by pale hands is any indications. Scorpius coos, nuzzling Barley’s fuzzy head.

“It hasn’t been forever, but I missed you too,” Albus admits before Scorpius looks back at him. He’s always found it a little more difficult to say things like that, especially in comparison to his loud, boisterous family, but with Scorpius, things come easier. Not to mention that he really has missed him, a lot, and not just since he moved.

“It _feels_ like forever,” Scorpius complains, as Albus lets him in and shuts the door. “We went from sharing beds in Hogwarts and seeing each other every day to you moving house and disappearing for _months_.”

Not quite true, in fact, because Scorpius disappeared first, but Scorpius is a fan of hyperbole. Albus rolls his eyes fondly, shoving his hands into his pockets as he nudges Scorpius’s shoulder with his own. They walk under the low wooden beams until they reach the shelf that Albus was tidying, and Scorpius puts Barley down on the table covered in boxes, where he promptly scatters a stack of papers for his own enjoyment.

“Pain in the arse,” Albus hisses, and Scorpius is so busy laughing that he doesn’t notice the quick spell Albus casts at the back doors, turning the glass opaque enough that his heart-garden is invisible. The light still comes through, warming the creaky floorboards, but his heart-garden is safe and sound.

Barley shoots him an affronted look at the insult. “Perhaps if you entertained me once in a while, I’d have a little less energy to spend torturing you. I’d like to have a civilised, _intelligent_ conversation for once.”

Scorpius stops laughing abruptly. He gapes down at Barley, who twitches his ears smugly, as though he can sense the oncoming storm. Albus flips him off before Scorpius can see.

“Al Potter, what in _Merlin_ have you done to this poor cat?” Scorpius demands, but his voice is so faint with shock that it doesn’t sound angry at all.

“Rude,” Albus mutters. “Why’d you assume it was me? Could have been that bugger down the end of the lane for all you know.”

He’s referring to Taz, who lives painfully close to Albus and comes round once a week with a bowl of his mum’s stew and a demand to play Gobstones until Albus wants to beat his own head in with the pieces.

Scorpius levels an incredulous stare at him, and Albus scratches his nose sheepishly, shrugging.

“Okay, so it was me, but I didn’t do it on purpose. A potion exploded and suddenly he could talk, and believe me, I would have taken Charms instead if I’d known this was going to happen in the future. He does _not_ like shutting up.”

“How insulting,” Barley says, affronted again. He leaps down from the table and stalks off, scattering more papers, tail high in the air.

“Oh, you’ve upset him now,” Scorpius says, sounding torn between amusement and worry. He bites at his lip, and Albus tries very hard not to stare. He still hasn’t gotten very good at that, and James always laughs at him and elbows him, calling him the least subtle person on the planet. Which, considering James practically fellates everything in existence when someone he fancies is around, is a bit rich coming from him.

“He’s alright,” Albus says. “I could do with some help, though, changing him back to normal, so I don’t have some Ministry Department coming down on my head for improper use of magic. How long are you here for?”

Scorpius sits at the table and props his chin up on his hands, grinning cheekily. “Trying to get rid of me already?”

“Literally the opposite, you prat,” Albus says, flicking a paperclip at him as he sits amongst the wreckage of his table. There are push-pins and books and pens and paints all over the place, and the shelf behind him is still only half-tidied, but Scorpius is smiling and right in front of him. Albus lets himself feel just how much he’s missed his best friend, and it sweeps over him in a warm wave. He can feel the olive tree in his heart-garden bow low in heavy glee. “I’m trying to ask for your help. And see how long before you have to leave.”

“Well, the thing is,” Scorpius says hesitantly, tilting his head to the side, “I don't technically _have_ to leave at all.”

***

“I still can’t believe he lost his job,” Albus says, eyes a little wide as he stirs his tea. Barley doesn’t appear to be listening, his yellow eyes fixed avidly on a small brown bird through the kitchen window. Scorpius is upstairs, using the recently-connected Floo to collect some luggage, and Albus is still in a strange state of shock.

“What, precisely, is so unbelievable about it?” Barley inquires, eyes flicking too and fro as the bird flitters up to land on the wall. Albus had momentarily cancelled the spell on the glass to let him look at his heart-garden; it calms him down, to see the quiet, small space that’s still in bloom. Even the dark smudge in the corner doesn’t dampen the effect.

“Scorpius is brilliant at his job,” Albus snaps. “He’s never missed a day, not even when he had that gross flu and was all sneezy and disgusting. He did his casework from a bed in St Mungos once. And he does so much for everyone, all the time. He’s always taking extra shifts and working late and helping, however he can. He’s saved so many creatures, even when everyone else was telling him to give up on them.”

Barley purrs a little, his tail flicking. “Then why did they consider him unnecessary to the cause?”

“Because my last name’s Malfoy,” Scorpius says, trudging tiredly into the kitchen. Albus hands him a cup of tea in silence, and Scorpius takes it with a grateful smile, sipping the steaming liquid. It’s lavender, to help him sleep because it might only be midday, but Scorpius looks exhausted.

“Your last name was Malfoy when they hired you, and that was ages ago,” Albus points out. “What changed?”

“There’s been a rise in magical creature trafficking lately,” Scorpius explains, leaning against the counter. The glass hurriedly turns opaque again, and Barley looks miffed about his view being obscured, but Albus honestly doesn’t care right then. “The department had to hire at least ten more people to cover the amount of extra time we’ve all been pulling, mostly interns, but out of those ten people, I think only one was happy to work with me, and that was on a good day.”

“And so, what, they _fired_ you?” Albus demands. “They can’t do that.”

“It seems to me that they already _did_ do that,” Barley says.

“The others wouldn’t work with me, and they need the staff,” Scorpius says, hunching his shoulders. “Our Department doesn’t have much funding. Most people don't care about Magical Creatures, much as they might pretend to, but they couldn’t justify hiring a bunch of people only for the cases to stay stagnant. If they got rid of me, they could have ten other fully-involved members of staff that didn’t spend all their time complaining or insulting me rather than doing their jobs.”

Barley makes a disgusted noise, and Albus nods in agreement. It is disgusting, the way Scorpius has been treated, but rage seems to have dried up all his words.

Scorpius sighs. “Father’s always told me that the Ministry’s corrupt, that it’s rotten to the core, and that our name would always be a black mark against me. That’s why he works freelance, after all.”

Albus scowls darkly at his drink.

“I didn’t honestly believe it,” Scorpius continues, his voice lower and more upset. “I thought that, maybe, if I worked so hard to show them that I was more than my family’s past, then they’d see me for me, and for all the good I want to do.”

He puts his tea down slowly, misery etched into the corners of his mouth. Albus feels his stomach churn at the look in his eyes, and there’s nothing he can do about any of this, nothing at all.

“I guess I was wrong about that,” Scorpius says, ducking his head. Albus stares at his pale hair and panics a little, because there are many things he wants to say to that, but the words just won’t come. He’s never been very good at this. He has so many words in his head, but they feel safer up there, and he feels more comfortable thinking them, or writing them down. He clears his throat and shifts a little closer, but a tentative hand on Scorpius’s shoulder isn’t enough.

Barley narrows his eyes into slits and stalks across the counter.

“Idiotic boy,” Barley hisses, aiming a swipe at Albus as he passes. His tail flicks Scorpius under the chin, and Scorpius looks up, eyes widening at finding the both of them so close. He peers at Albus curiously, grey eyes wide and sad.

“Hullo,” Albus says lamely, with a weak, helpless grin. Barley hisses again, fed up of his hopelessness, but Albus ignores him.

“Hi there,” Scorpius says, a small smile quirking his lips. He rubs his eyes and leans into Albus’s hand.

“You are indispensable to your team,” Barley says firmly, his claws clacking against the counter as he paces. “They are ridiculous for firing you, and they have made a colossal mistake, as I am sure they have already discovered. Albus here has told me all about your brilliance.”

Albus holds back a groan. He’s seized with the sudden urge to grab the large saucepan hanging off the hook and trap Barley inside until the potion wears off, but Scorpius is looking at him with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. The strangeness of having Albus extol his virtues through a talking cat obviously hasn’t lessened the effect of the compliments.

“They don't deserve you,” Albus adds, squeezing his shoulder, when it’s clear that Barley isn’t going to continue. “I’m pretty sure they’re not actually allowed to fire you because of such a stupid reason. And you’re worth a hundred interns, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Scorpius agrees, a proper smile filling his face and banishing the air from Albus’s lungs. “Yeah, I am.”

“Well thank gracious for that,” Barley huffs. He pads his way across the counter on soft paws and hops down onto the clean tiles, skidding a little. “My work here is done for the day. I’ll thank you to put a little extra fish in my bowl this evening, in return for my services.”

Albus flips him off, and then Barley is gone. Scorpius hides his laughter in his sleeve, and Albus belatedly drops his hand from his shoulder, tucking it back in his pocket.

“I’m going to kill him if I don't find a way to turn him back to normal soon,” Albus says.

“I don't know,” Scorpius says, a mischievous smile in place. “He’s better at inspiring speeches than you are. Maybe you could hire him instead, have him follow you around and take over all your conversations for you.”

Albus opens his mouth to let loose an outraged reply when a disembodied voice answers them from the other room.

“As if that heathen could afford me.”

***

Albus wakes Scorpius up early the next morning, trying to sneak out into his heart-garden. His guest room isn’t set up yet, which means Scorpius either had to share Albus’s bed or curl up on the second-hand sofa that Grandad Weasley gave him when he moved out. He’d seemed a little uncomfortable at the options, so Albus had piled plenty of sheets and quilts on top of the cushions and held his breath when Scorpius hugged him goodnight.

At Hogwarts, they wouldn’t have hesitated to curl up together in the same bed, ankles bumping awkwardly as they talked in low voices about escaping the walls of Hogwarts. The castle was always supposed to be a second home, but it never quite felt that way for Albus. He knows Scorpius felt the same, too. And he knows they spent a lot of nights talking about what their flat would look like, when they left school, and he wonders how they slotted together so easily despite the perplexing way that teenage boys functioned. He wonders when they stopped being so young and entwined, and he wonders how to get it back, as he walks through the living room.

Scorpius must have fallen asleep reading, Albus thinks, as he reaches over to turn off the lamp. It’s a familiar scene; Scorpius often used to fall asleep in the common room, in front of the fire, snoring lightly with a giant textbook in his lap. Albus was always delegated to wake him up, and he probably would have cursed anyone else who tried, but usually he just left him sleep anyway, aware that Scorpius rarely slept a whole night through. His mind was too busy, the weight of expectation on his shoulders too heavy to bother with trivial things like sleep. So Albus sat at his feet and ignored his essays and glowered at anyone that made too much noise.

There’s a book on Scorpius’s chest, open at a random page, and his fingers are curled loosely around the spine. His pyjamas look familiar, but Albus can’t place them in his mind, so he just shrugs and slips through the kitchen, towards the back doors. Barley is nowhere to be seen, which means he’s probably escaped again, and is prowling the neighbourhood in search of victims to terrorise. He did that before he had a voice, so Merlin only knows what he’ll get up to now.

“Al?”

Albus freezes with one wellington boot on, door-handle already halfway down. There’s a hole in the bottom of his boot that he needs to fix, and a slug crawling up the side of the other, and he focuses on the silver trail of slime to stop himself from dissolving into a panic.

“Uh, yeah, it’s just me,” Albus calls, glancing through the kitchen archway to see a pair of sleepy eyes and mussed hair peeking at him over the back of the sofa. There’s nothing he wants more than to go and curl up with Scorpius on the sofa, except they don’t do that anymore, and _that is a very strange thought to have about your best friend,_ Albus tells himself sternly. Unfortunately, it’s not the first time he’s had such a thought.

“You can go back to sleep,” Albus offers, but Scorpius is already swinging his legs over the side of the sofa, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand.

“I’m up now,” Scorpius says, stumbling closer in a haze. He glances at the door, brows furrowed. “Were you gardening?”

Albus winces. “Uh.”

It takes Scorpius’s sleep-addled mind a while to catch up, but when he does, he immediately stands to attention. “Oh! Shit, sorry Albus.”

Albus blinks at him. It’s rare that Scorpius swears, although he’s not the sweet, innocent boy that most people seem to think he is. Well, he is sweet, Albus amends in his head, and there’s a certain level of innocence to him, but nobody who knows Scorpius properly could ever believe that he is _just_ those things. He’s so much more.

“Is… is that your heart-garden?” Scorpius ventures, sounding vaguely awed. He starts to try and peer through the glass, which is still fogged up with magic, but then he catches himself and shakes his head. “I’m so used to you having a little hidden box of plants by your bed that I didn’t think about it being a proper garden now.”

He must catch the tension rolling off Albus in waves, because he smiles. “I’ll just make breakfast while you do whatever it is you need to do, yeah?”

Albus breathes a sigh of relief. He’s always hidden his smaller heart-gardens with magic, even from Scorpius, but he doesn’t particularly want to do that here. The walls are charmed so that nobody can look in, but he likes the little breath of freedom he gets when he steps out into a wide open space. He likes being able to feel the breeze and hear the birds and smell sap and pollen.

“Thanks, Scorp,” Albus says. His hand tightens briefly on the door handle, and he hesitates. “It’s not because it’s you, you know?”

Scorpius has always been more open with his heart-garden. It’s never very far from him, a jam-jar stuffed with moss and succulents and sand, the lid screwed on tightly. It rattles in the pockets of his green overcoat more often than not, but it also sits on table-tops and cabinets and places where anyone can glimpse it. Albus has seen it because Scorpius lets him, invites him, and he feels the usual guilt rise up at the thought that he’s hiding something so important from his best friend.

Scorpius’s smile is soft and understanding. “I know. Now, shoo. Do you want eggs?”

Albus grins at him briefly. “Do I ever say no to food?”

Scorpius snorts and waves him away, turning towards the pantry. “That's the Weasley in you.”

Albus keeps grinning as he tends his heart-garden. The ugly spot is still there, but Albus finds he can ignore it in favour of pouring bird seed on the little stand near the door. He wants a proper birdhouse, but he wants to build it himself.

“Perhaps your young man could help with that,” Barley states, from the top of the wall. Albus yelps and aims a spell at him, which misses and ricochets off the wall, skimming a leafy green plant.

“Merlin,” Albus says, breathing harshly. “I swear you live to scare the shit out of me. What are you doing up there? And how did you know what I was thinking, what, can you read minds as well as babble for hours?”

Barley sighs. “You are repugnant.”

Albus makes a little noise of protest, insulted. Barley just speaks over him.

“ _You_ are the one who poured a potion all over me, intentionally or not, and you haven’t even done a single spell to determine what changed other than my voice. I cannot read your mind, you blithering Flobberworm, but I can skim your topmost thoughts.”

Albus eyes him, feeling more than a little apprehensive. “Sounds like Legilimency to me. You better not go poking around in my head.” A glimmer of guilt sets in, then, and he jerks his head at the door. “If you come down here, I can do some spells and see what’s wrong. It might help us fix you.”

“I do not need to be fixed,” Barley says primly, settling himself quite comfortably on top of the wall like a loaf of bread and washing his paws. “Your heart-garden, on the other hand, definitely does.”

Albus scowls at the mark on the far side of the garden. “I don't know what to do about it. I don't even know what it is, let alone how to fix it. It could be anything.”

“I told you,” Barley says, as he lies down for a bit of a snooze in the muted sunlight. “You must open your heart.”

Albus lets the words simmer as he waters the plants, humming to the flowers and coaxing several furled up leaves into the light. He had thought his heart was pretty open, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe he hasn’t come far at all from the closed-off version of himself that he was for most of his Hogwarts years. That’s what people called him, anyway. He had a couple of friends, and Merlin knows his family could be found around every damn corner, but mostly he stuck with Scorpius, staying in the library and venturing down to the greenhouse in the evening, where Professor Longbottom would let him tend to some of the plants so they could be used in Potions class.

He knows people were waiting for him to come out of his shell. They were waiting for him to be loud and bright and talkative, a little more Weasley, a tad more Potter, and a bit less Albus. That’s what it felt like, anyway. They’ve stopped now, as far as he can tell, because truthfully, he’s always been a bit reserved, and he thinks he might continue to be. Dad never really understood it, and Mum always looked at him fondly, as though he was this odd, sweet thing that she didn't understand. James calls him a weirdo even when he tells him he loves him, ruffles his hair and tells him to smile, and Lily is often busy, but when she does see him, her smiles are brief and her conversation is light.

He doesn’t mind it. He feels -- on the outside, somehow. He will always be this way, always be sort of quiet and careful with his words, and a little clumsy, and grumpy, and not very good at many things. Albus is older now, and Dad is more understanding, always reassures him that it’s alright to be that way, as long as it doesn’t stop him from doing the things he wants to do. He thinks the rest of his family understands him even less now that he’s grown up and stayed the same, but he doesn’t mind as much as he used to.

He brushes his hands off as he steps into the kitchen, shutting the door and tugging off his boots. The slug that was clinging to the side is safely on one end of the garden, away from the line of leafy lettuces, but Albus doesn’t doubt it’ll slither it’s way over there soon.

Scorpius is at the stove, the harsh sound of spitting eggs filling the kitchen. The book he was reading last night is open on the side, and the ruffled pages turn slowly as Scorpius reads, absently sprinkling chopped chives into the mixture.

“They’re scrambled, since I know you hate it when you can see the yolk,” Scorpius calls, picking up the whisk. Albus smiles to himself as he washes the dirt out from under his nails at the kitchen sink with pink grapefruit washing up liquid; he likes being known, even when the knowledge is small. “You can sort the toast out for me, it should be done by now.”

Albus sets about buttering and plating things up, and Scorpius pours generous helpings of scrambled eggs onto their plates. It’s not bad: a bit rubbery, and too much pepper at points, but good. They sit quietly for the most part, but then Scorpius starts asking about the potion that exploded in Barley’s face, and Albus finds himself reeling off the ingredients that he put in it.

“It was supposed to be something a bit different, for a customer down the road,” Albus says. He takes a bite out of his toast and raises an eyebrow when he spots Scorpius’s confused expression.

“A customer?”

“Oh,” Albus says, swallowing. He blinks a little in surprise. “Yeah. I started doing a little potions business, when some people at the Piskie Inn asked for a good Hangover Potion. It’s not much, really, just ointments and Pepper-Ups and stuff. But there’s a birthday party for one of the kids in the village next week, and they wanted something fun, so I was just experimenting.”

He shrugs, but Scorpius looks amazed. He beams at Albus, pride written all over his face, and Albus feels a dull heat spread through him as he stares back, wild-eyed. And then Scorpius’s expression falls a little.

“You didn’t tell me,” Scorpius says. “You… you usually always tell me things. Even when I really don't want you to.”

Albus knows he’s thinking about that time in the Hospital Wing, when Albus outlined a very explicit dream he’d had about Professor Longbottom whilst slightly inebriated on some kind of pain-numbing potion. He can’t remember much, but he has a feeling it involved some very creative uses for sticky tentacula vines, and possibly a spade. He flushes, poking his eggs with his fork.

“That wasn’t my fault,” Albus grumbles. “We were only in that situation because you insisted we go into the Forbidden Forest, and I got trampled by a bloody rogue flock of Skrewts.”

“I don't think it’s called a flock. And I thought I heard an animal in pain!” Scorpius says defensively, but he’s trying not to grin.

“I’ll give you _animal in pain,_ ” Albus says, pointing the fork at him instead. Scorpius pulls a face at him, playful all of a sudden, and then sighs as he props his chin up on his hands. Albus knows that Scorpius’s Grandmother would give him hell for putting his elbows on the table, but despite how much of a Malfoy he is, one thing that’s never truly stuck with Scorpius is table manners, something that always horrified the rest of the Slytherins at meal-times.  

“Something wrong?” Albus asks. Scorpius looks like he’s far away, his expression wistful.

“Things really aren’t how I thought they’d be, you know,” Scorpius muses. He blows a bit of his hair out of his eyes while Albus looks at him questioningly. “I just mean, I thought things would be different when we left Hogwarts. Actually, I thought they’d be the _same._ I thought we’d still see each other every day, and be best friends, and I’d have that job as a Magical Creature Consultant, and everything would be fine.”

Albus stares at him, concerned, and puts his fork down slowly. Albus didn't realise that Scorpius thought similarly to him. They’ve always been on the same page for most things, but they undoubtedly think differently a lot of the time.

“But you moved here, and I barely see you, and I lost my job,” Scorpius continues, wrinkling his brow at his plate.  

“You moved first,” Albus points out. Scorpius snaps his head up to look at him, surprised, and Albus almost loses his nerve before he pushes on, despite the squirming feeling of guilt in his stomach.

“You got your job, and I know it wasn’t where you wanted to be, but you were working towards it. And that meant you were all over the place, travelling everywhere for weeks at a time. You missed Rosie’s birthday, that one time, because you were in Egypt, and I still remember Flooing you every day for a week to see if you wanted to come for dinner and getting no answer. You were in Peru, that time. And you didn't know I was moving for a while because I just didn't see you.”

Scorpius flushes steadily, growing more and more crestfallen.

“I’m not blaming you,” Albus says hurriedly, the guilt only intensifying. “I’m not mad, either. You were just doing what you were meant to do, and I was busy too, sometimes. But I don't think things can stay exactly the same, is all, because we kind of have to go out and do things that adults do.”

They both grimace at the same time, and the tension slowly seeps out of the room as laughter fills it instead. Scorpius finishes his eggs, and Albus tries to stop watching him, but he really can’t. He’s made his peace with the fact that Scorpius is the one thing in this world that will always hold his attention, regardless of what else is going on. He could be naked and on fire in the middle of Diagon Alley and still find the time to pick out Scorpius in a crowd.

He waits until Scorpius stands with his plate in his hand before he opens his mouth.

“You’re still my best friend,” Albus adds quickly, before he can lose his courage. “Everything else might change, but that won’t. Ever. Okay?”

Scorpius looks at him, and Albus can see the shine in his eyes that means he’s happy, but he also knows that sly tilt to his mouth.

“Country life has turned you into a sap, Albus Potter.”

He laughs when Albus blushes furiously, and leans over to take his plate, pressing a light kiss to his temple as he pulls away. Albus is thoroughly floored by the touch. They haven’t done that before.

He clears his throat hoarsely, and, well aware that this will get something thrown at him, says, “Doesn’t look like you’ve got much of a problem with it.”

The tea-towel hits him squarely in the face, hiding his grin from view.

***

“Have you told your dad?” Albus asks, as they trudge through the town. It’s mostly hedgerows and gravel paths at the moment, since Albus lives a little further out than most, but Scorpius seems taken in, all the same, plucking berries from the bushes and running his fingers through the heather. “About the job thing?”

“You mean about being fired because I’m a Malfoy?” Scorpius snorts, plucking heather from the bush and picking at it. “I didn’t want to be the one to start another war. I don't think that would help our reputation much.”

“Yeah, he could definitely take down the Ministry in one blow,” Albus says, wincing. “You probably should tell them at some point though.”

Scorpius sighs gustily. “Maybe. Or I could Apparate to a forest far away and spend the rest of my life up in the trees, living off the land and eating bark.”

“Bark is a pretty good source of fibre, I reckon.”

Scorpius snorts. “With my luck, it’ll be poisonous bark, and you’ll find me in a bush three weeks later, being eaten by bears."

“And they say I’m the emo one,” Albus muses aloud, and he gets a shove for his trouble. He laughs, bouncing off the hedgerow, and rights himself with Scorpius’s help. “Seriously, though, it’s not all bad. You can Floo your parents at mine, and your mum will keep your dad calm.”

Scorpius stops briefly in his tracks and raises an eyebrow at him incredulously. “Have you met my mother? She’ll burn the Ministry to the ground and dance on the ashes. Dad won’t even have a chance to lift his wand.”

Albus shrugs, tugging him around the last bend. “The Ministry deserves the wrath of Astoria, if you ask me.”

“Sap,” Scorpius says cheerfully, and Albus has a feeling that word will be on his gravestone, if the way Scorpius insists on using it is anything to go by. “Is this the place?”

Albus nods as they turn the corner into the town, smiling faintly at the ramshackle shops and the piles of stalls in the centre. There’s a clock tower in one corner that has several statements inscribed around the outer face, scratched into the stone, and the rest of the shops are packed with bright colours and pops and bangs, posters and leaflets flashing in the windows. Pinstripe awnings offer cover for the floating tables and chairs, and brooms sweep their way along the cobblestones, urging clouds of dust into stubborn, close-mouthed pans.

The huddled stalls of the Farmer’s Market are an amalgamation of fluttering flags and canopies, as well as floating merchandise. A hag tends one stall cluttered with earthy potatoes, crisp sugar snap peas and sweet, crunchy carrots. Albus is pretty sure the man with the abundance of fresh, hot pies on his stall is a werewolf. He gently guides a board covered in crumbling cheese samples in another direction before leading Scorpius into the fray.

He has a system in place by now, and he knows what he needs and what he wants to buy, but Scorpius’s wide-eyed excitement is enough to make him slow down as they move from stall to stall. They’re admiring a chicken-shaped wire basket full of eggs, which clucks when Scorpius picks it up, when Albus hears his name being called.

“Albus, love,” calls Old Ellie, in a rumbling voice, from where she’s tucked into a wicker chair behind a stall. Her knitting covers the floor beneath the table in a large, maroon blanket, pock-marked with rosy pink and flickers of orange. It looks soft, reminds Albus of Weasley jumpers, like the several hundred he has stuffed away in the bottom of his wardrobe. Albus is careful not to step on the ends as he ducks through the crowd, Scorpius at his heels.

“Didn't see you there, El,” Albus says, putting his hands on the pockets of his jeans, too loose and worn at the knees. He’s got dungarees at home in his wardrobe, and he has absolutely no intention of putting them on with Scorpius around to laugh at him, which leaves him with his only clean jeans. “Rich yet?”

Old Ellie squints at him, her wrinkled cheeks bunching up when she smiles. “Oh, love, if only the world loved jam enough for that. Here, dear. I’ve got that marmalade you wanted tucked back here where it’s safe.”

Albus digs about in his pockets, searching for sickles, aware of Scorpius’s eyes on his face.

“None of that now, dear,” Old Ellie says, waving a hand dismissively as she summons the marmalade out from under the stall. “Anything you want from this stall of mine is free, you know that.”

Albus slips a sickle under one of the crocheted place-mats anyway, and waves goodbye as they weave through the crowd. The marmalade fits nicely under his arm. He’s aware that Scorpius is eyeing him strangely, so he sighs and tugs him towards the pies.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Why is the marmalade free?” Scorpius looks intrigued, far too intrigued as Albus pretends to be immersed in the little flashing ingredient cards in front of each pie. Scorpius puts on a wheedling tone. “C’mon, Albus. That old lady clearly likes you enough to give you free stuff. Did you do something?”

Albus mutters something inaudibly.

“What was that?”

Albus sighs, throwing an exasperated look at his best friend. “I saved her cow.”

Scorpius blinks at him rapidly. “Pardon?”

“Don’t tell James or Lily, but Daisy was stuck in a fence out in the field near me, and I heard her mooing, so I went out and rescued her, and it turns out it was Ellie’s cow and now I get free preserves whenever I want,” Albus says, all in a rush.

Stan, the werewolf behind the pie stall, starts snickering at the same time as Scorpius.

“That sounds like the beginning of a country romance novel,” Scorpius says, grinning widely. “If you and Ellie get married, can I be the Best Man?”

“You don't deserve to be the Best Man.”

“Oh my Merlin, you’re not just a sap, you’re a _farmer_. You’re the farmer boy next door!”

“Shut up,” Albus groans, shrinking down a cherry and pecan pie and throwing a few coins at Stan. He stalks off with his wares, listening to Scorpius giggle behind him.

He doesn’t forgive Scorpius verbally until they sneak inside the sweet-shop and Scorpius buys him a bag of Ice Mice. They walk home in the warm sunshine with chattering teeth, and Albus spots Barley along the path, gives him a little wave that goes ignored. The pie goes in the oven to warm and the fresh loaf goes in the bread bin and the jars of honey and marmalade are tucked into the cupboards while Scorpius talks and talks about how bloody nice everyone is around here and what do to about the cat.

“You know, you have a lot of Potions books, Al,” Scorpius says, later, when they’ve gorged themselves on pie and are lying, heavy and full, on the living room rug, surrounded by scattered crumbs. It’s been nice, just talking about all the things they’ve missed between them.

“What a revelation.”

A cushion hits him in the knee, and then Scorpius stuffs it back under his head. “I meant, you idiot, that there might be something to help Barley in there.”

“Yeah,” Albus says, shifting a little uncomfortably. “Maybe.”

He doesn’t want to look for an answer. Truthfully, he doesn’t want to fix Barley. If he fixes Barley, then there’s not much more of a reason for Scorpius to hang around. He’ll go job-hunting, or move back to the Manor for a bit, or travel again, for the fun of it this time. And if they fix Barley, and Scorpius leaves, then Albus really will be the lonely guy who talks to a cat that can’t talk back.

***

Albus brings a mug of tea out to his heart-garden and settles on the back step. Barley yawns widely, curling up with his head on Albus’s thigh, and he strokes him absently behind the ear as he watches the sunrise. Scorpius is still asleep, and they’re a few steps closer to finding out a way to reverse the effects on Barley, and the ugliness in his heart-garden is even bigger today.

“It makes no sense,” Albus mutters. “This is the happiest I’ve been in ages."

He was happy in Hogwarts, when it was just him and Scorpius. He was happy at the Burrow, during summers, when it was just him and Lily in the treehouse out back, making up stories with each other and building pretend-potions out of grass and heather. He was happy whenever he went over to see James in his new flat with Ted, happy sitting on the old sofa and watching weird game shows on TV, James’s feet on his lap and takeout stuffed in their mouths, Teddy laughing at them both.

Drinking and shopping with Louis was fun, to a point. Trying out Hugo’s newest dishes first made him feel wanted, needed. It was nice, to be able to putter around the house with his parents there, and he liked spending time with Luna and the Scamander twins, writing articles in the nook overlooking the river packed with plimpies.

But all of that happiness was always plagued with something, with a dull sense that he didn’t quite belong, that his corners were too sharp and his edges too ragged for him to fit comfortably in any space he could find. He always felt a little bit _less_ than the people around him. There was no use in denying how tiring that could be, how it felt like a cold spot in a pool of warmth, how it blotted out the good things in his life.

Now, things are a little different. Not all the way there, not yet, but on its way. He feels a little lighter inside. Maybe it’s because he has a new job on top of his old one, a job he quite enjoys. Maybe it’s because the people here are friendly and there are no expectations. Maybe it’s because he can be himself, out here, quietly and without judgement, and his heart-garden feels fuller and freer than it did before.

He’s growing, he thinks, staring in wonder as daisies blossom in the grass. Their petals are soft and pink, like the first kiss of sunset. He’s _growing._

“Maybe the sadness you carry around, that ugliness, as you call it,” Barley says suddenly, “is growing with you.”

Albus startles a little, spilling warm tea over his fingers. He swaps hands and wipes the wetness on his jeans, a furrow in his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Barley butts his head against Albus’s thigh until he resumes his stroking. “You bake pies now, and you make potions full of fun, and you enjoy being outside in the world, but you’re still lonely.”

“I’m not lonely,” Albus denies, but he feels uneasy. “I have Scorpius here now.”

“You do,” Barley agrees, stretching his legs as he gets to his feet. “You have Scorpius, and you will not let him in. You don't want him to leave, but you won’t ask him to stay.”

“He has better things to do than stick around here.” Albus swallows, watching as the darkness spreads further along the wall. “He _does._ He’s going to get his old job back, or start a new one, an even better one. And he still has places to go, you know. He’s so much more than this, and he deserves better.”

Albus gestures lamely at his heart-garden.

Barley hums. “Have you spoken with him about this? It wouldn’t do to assume these sorts of things based on your own insecurities. Humans are far, far inferior to cats, after all, and cannot skim thoughts without a great deal of effort. How are you to know what he wants, or what he deserves, unless you ask him?”

Albus gives him a gentle poke, to which Barley huffs and skitters down the steps. He sits in a patch of new daisies and washes his paw, his tail flicking agitatedly behind him.

“So talk to him, is what you’re saying,” Albus says, chewing his lip. “Tell him I’d like it if he stayed. I can do that.”

Barley scoffs quietly, and Albus refrains from flipping off the cat, if only because he doesn’t want to get his fingers bitten off.

“What did you mean, when you said that the ugliness is growing with me?”

Barley sighs, clearly despairing of the idiocy of humankind. “Everyone has a little darkness inside them, Albus. It isn’t always a bad thing. You can’t get rid of it, nor should you want to. It’s a part of your past, and your experiences, and you may find it awful and painful to look at, but a little nurturing may help you find a place for it after all.”

“You’re saying it won’t go away, no matter what I do.”

“Of course not,” Barley says. “Things like that do not simply disappear. It is there, always, and it always will be, and it is not only you that suffers with it. It’s also not what you think.”

Albus stares in dismay at the patch on the wall, his stomach sinking. He doesn’t want it there. He wants it gone. And no matter what his cat says, he can’t shake the feeling that it really is just him that has a tainted heart-garden.

Barley brushes by him on his way to the back door, and Albus stands on instinct to let him in. He catches intelligent, bright eyes and holds Barley’s gaze.

“Ask your boy. Talk to him. I think that, even if you don't get the answers you want, you will find the comfort you seek.”

***

He waits a few days. And then, on a morning like any other, Albus makes a few rounds of toast with his fresh, crusty loaf of bread and shakes Scorpius awake. Scorpius stirs after a few murmured calls and blinks sleepily up at Albus, surprised.

“Hullo,” he whispers, staring down at Scorpius.

Scorpius’s mouth quirks. “Hi there.”

“Sorry, I know it’s early. I just wanted to show you something, and it’s nicer at this time. Do you have wellies?”

Scorpius doesn’t have wellies, so Albus lends him his slippers instead, tartan and thick. They clash horribly with Scorpius’s pyjamas, which Albus registers with a start as his own. He thought he’d lost them years ago, but apparently, they’d just been pilfered from his trunk.

“Where are we going?” Scorpius asks, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as they trudge through the kitchen. He stops abruptly when they reach the back-door, and Albus snags the plate of toast from the counter and smiles hesitantly, dangling the key in his free hand.

“It’s nothing much,” Albus says, as he fits the key in the lock. “And you don't have to, y’know, _feel_ anything or say something, but I just thought it might be nice for you to come and have a look.”

A hand rests on his arm, soothing him. Albus takes a deep breath and opens the door before he can change his mind.

Scorpius goes out first. He goes out and he stops on the top step, and his eyes take in everything, from the little rows of veggies in their soil beds, to the herb garden flowering along one wall, up and over the tallest leaves of the trees, down to the thick patches of flowers and shrubs.

He sits down heavily on the top step. Albus joins him, moving carefully, and the back door shuts behind them. The toast sits on the step beside them, near the bird-feeder, where several house sparrows are pecking at seeds. Albus folds his feet underneath him, squirming to fit the wellies under his thighs, and watches Scorpius’s face. He’s taking it all in, his mouth slightly open, his sleep-rumpled hair all over his forehead and his pale eyes wide with a soft kind of awe.

“D’you like it?” Albus blurts out.

Scorpius swivels round to face him, eyebrows zooming away from his eyes like they have the plague. “Do I _like_ it?”

Albus breathes out slowly and nods, a small, sharp motion. Scorpius watches him for a moment, and then his gaze flitters back to the garden before he seems to some sort of conclusion. He nods decisively, and then, with pink cheeks, reaches out and takes one of Albus’s hands in his.

“Albus, it’s a part of you. It _is_ you. There’s no way that I couldn’t love every inch of it.”

“Oh,” Albus says, lost for words. He feels - odd. Light. Lighter than he felt before, which seems impossible, given that before he felt as light as he’d ever been. “That’s… really?”

Scorpius laughs, quiet in the morning. “Yeah, really. You dolt. I love it. It’s beautiful.” He clasps their hands closer, tighter. “Thank you for letting me see. I know it must have been hard.”

“Not as hard as I thought it’d be,” Albus says, shrugging slightly. “I think it’s because it’s you, though.”

Scorpius beams at him. He tucks himself closer and reaches over for a slice of toast, his hair tickling Albus’s cheek. He smells of apples, of sweet things. Albus tries not to kiss him, but he’s not sure what’s holding him back. He watches Scorpius munch down happily on a slice of toast, his eyes still sweeping over the garden.

“Do you really love all of it?” Albus asks, a hint of nervousness in his voice. “Even… that part?”

He jerks his head at the wall where the ugliness grows. There’s no way that Scorpius hasn’t seen it in his perusal of the heart-garden, but Albus feels the need to point it out anyway.

Scorpius stares at the wall thoughtfully, swallowing his toast. His hand doesn’t leave Albus’s.

“Everyone has something like that, Al. It’s not a bad thing. I know it looks like something bad, but it isn’t.”

Albus frowns at him in surprise. “How isn’t it a bad thing?”

Scorpius hums, moving closer still until they’re pressed together from shoulder to thigh, warmth seeping through the thin flannel.

“Dad used to call it an unkindness. It’s the bits of us that we don't know what to do with. Some people have weeds that grow in between all the good stuff, and they pull them out because it’s just a bad thought, and a bad thought on its own can be brushed aside, forgotten. But a bad thought that gathers other bad thoughts and feelings, and experiences - that becomes an unkindness, like that splodge on your wall. It grows if you leave it alone, if you ignore it. If you face it, and you accept it, and you work to make it feel better, then it’s supposed to shrink. It never goes away though.”

Albus sucks in a breath. “Why not?”

Scorpius turns his head to give him a small smile. “People aren’t very good at being kind to themselves. That’s why we need loved ones around us, to help us see the good bits. Nobody ever has a heart that’s good and full of love all the time. We aren’t _pure._ Those dark bits are just as important, just as much a part of us as the flowers and trees.”

“Do you have one of those?” Albus leans into him. “One of those dark patches.”

“It’s on the inside of the lid of my jam-jar,” Scorpius says, nodding firmly. “Sometimes it creeps down the sides of the glass and I can’t even see my heart-garden. That usually only happens when I’m somewhere far away, and I’ve seen too many horrible things happening to innocent creatures, and I feel all miserable and lonely inside. That’s usually how I know I have to come home, to you and the Manor.”

Scorpius snaps his mouth shut abruptly, turning red. Albus stares at his flushed cheeks, his heart beating faster in his chest, growing wings. He thinks of Scorpius on his doorstep, not too long ago, and how he’d missed Albus enough to come looking for him. Losing his job, that must have made the darkness grow a little bigger, made the unkind thoughts about last names and what he _deserves_ come flooding in.

“Anyway, it’s perfectly normal,” Scorpius continues, a little faster than usual. “I know I call you a strange one, Albus, but you’re not strange because of this. I think if you’re a little kinder to yourself, it should stop growing.”

Albus looks at the wall. It’s not quite as big and terrifyingly opaque as he thought it was. It’s still there, and no doubt it’s inching outwards, but now that he knows what it is, what made it, there’s less to worry about. He’s not sure how to go about being kinder to himself, of all things, but he reckons he knows where to start.

“So, this being kind thing,” Albus says, after a few minutes have passed. “Do you think that’s in the same category as letting myself have what I want?”

Scorpius puts down his second piece of toast and turns properly to look at him. They’re still holding hands, and Albus likes that, but he sort of needs them free for what he wants to do.

“I suppose, if it’s something you’ve been denying yourself because of your insecurities,” Scorpius says, nodding slowly. He’s got his academic face on, the one that means he’s about to dive into a mountain of theories and not be seen for weeks. Albus lets himself look.

He looks at the soft hair and the curved, clever mouth, and the eyes that shine with curiosity, grey as the moon. He looks at the pilfered pyjamas and the tartan slippers and breathes in apples and toast and pollen.

“Albus?” Scorpius tips his head. “Is everything okay?”

Albus nods. He’s still awkward and clumsy when he reaches out, planting both hands gently on Scorpius’s face. He’s still nervous when he shifts closer, asking a question with his eyes and a murmur. He’s hesitant, when Scorpius hesitates too.

“It’s okay if you want to say no,” Albus says, just a breath away from Scorpius’s mouth.

“I don't want to say no,” Scorpius says, almost like he’s coming to a realisation, and Albus lets him have the moment before they’re both pushing in, awkward and clumsy and nervous and hesitant.

It’s a kiss that tastes like toast and feels like growing, like stepping into new wellington boots and watering that first green stem.

Albus sighs happily as he draws back. Scorpius is plainly stunned, his breath shaky, lips parted slightly. He takes in Albus’s expression in much the same way he took in his heart-garden, with awe and a little bit of wonder, at being allowed this. Albus feels the same.

“Do you want to go inside and talk?” Albus murmurs.

Scorpius laughs a little, a bright sound. “There’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear you say. I thought it was my job to be the emotionally mature one.”

Albus shoves him lightly and gets to his feet. There’s still toast left, so he levitates it and casts a warming charm on the last few slices and casting one last look at his heart-garden before he follows Scorpius inside.

The bees are out, sluggish and slow, and the birds in the feeder are squabbling over a pile of seeds. His garden sways in the morning. The unkindness shrinks, and doesn’t go, but it doesn’t grow, either.

***

They’re in Albus’s bed, tucked under the covers, a new stack of hot toast sat between them. Yesterday was a day of kissing, of quiet, murmured words, and an eventual, stumbling invite to share Albus’s bed the way they used to. Scorpius had pretended to faint with relief, citing a need to burn the sofa that had apparently broken his back the last few nights.

They spent the night curled together, exploring, ankles brushing as they talked about Scorpius’s job and heart-gardens and telling people, later, when they were used to it all.

Now, though, Albus has a book on DIY open and is staring at bird-feeders, proper ones, and Scorpius is humming some song as he wriggles his feet under his covers.

The door creaks open, and Barley strolls in. He narrows his eyes at them both and stops in the doorway.

“Oh, you’re being disgusting, I see. I wondered where you were.”

Albus pulls a face at him. “We’re just sitting. Reading. Eating toast. And no, you can’t have any.”

“I don't want your dull, measly toast. I’d appreciate a little tuna, though, if you wouldn’t mind crawling out of your cocoon and tending to your abysmal life.”

Scorpius hides his laughter behind his sleeve. He’s wearing more of Albus’s pyjamas, and Albus has a pair of Scorpius’s socks on. It’s all very domestic, and Albus hasn’t felt this happy, _properly_ happy in a long time.

“It’s not abysmal,” Albus says. “Especially not anymore.”

Barley scoffs. “How quaint. When you’ve finished your abhorrent affections, come and fill my bowl.”

“Do it yourself! Grow some thumbs!” Albus yells, as Barley slips back out of the bedroom.

“I truly don't think you want that to happen, Albus.”

Albus blinks at the door. “Well that was bloody ominous. If you see him with a knife, just curse the bugger.”

Scorpius rolls his eyes, grinning. “We really should fix him, but it’s sort of entertaining watching you two yell at each other. He’s definitely winning the war, though.”

Albus grumbles, and Scorpius leans over to kiss him on the cheek. Albus still isn’t used to that, and maybe he never will be. He finds himself letting out a soft sigh as he turns to kiss Scorpius on the mouth, pressing their lips together firmly and skating one hand up his neck and along his jaw.

“I’m glad we did this,” Albus says, not quite pulling away from Scorpius’s mouth. “I’m glad we’re together. Don't know what took us so long.”

Scorpius opens his eyes, which had drifted shut, and bites his lip. His mouth is red and tempting, and Albus wants to keep kissing him, but it feels like Scorpius has something important to say.

“I think it was me. I think that’s why we took so long.”

Albus frowns. “How so?”

Scorpius picks up a bit of toast, drawing back with a sigh. He shrugs halfheartedly, and then says, “I was scared of a lot of things. I knew I liked you, and I thought that maybe you could like me too, although I wasn’t really sure about that until you kissed me, actually. But I was still scared. I still am, a bit.”

Albus’s heart gives a little pathetic thump in his chest. “You don't want this?”

“I do,” Scorpius insists, before Albus can follow that train of thought any further into the station. “I promise I do. I’m just a bit nervous about how things will be if we get together.”

Albus waits. He’s good at that. He’s good at waiting and listening, and he’s especially good at that when it’s Scorpius he’s waiting for, and he knows that the reverse is true.  

“Maybe I just don't want to ruin things,” Scorpius says eventually, staring mulishly down at his crust of toast. “Maybe I don't want to lose my best friend to gain a boyfriend.”

Albus blinks rapidly at him and snorts, then, unable to help it. “Idiot.” He softens his voice, his heartbeat slowing as the worries filter out of him. “That's what you’re worried about?”

Scorpius brandishes his bit of toast in Albus’s direction, his expression frustrated and small.

“I don't want things to change again,” Scorpius says. “I don't want things to go wrong and end up losing you, and I don't want this - whatever we decide to be - to change what we already have.”

Albus shifts his book to the bottom of the bed, and moves the plate of toast to the bedside table. He waits patiently for Scorpius to do the same and then reaches over to pull him closer, ignoring his small squeak. Albus’s bed is small, but they’ve shared smaller. The mattress squeaks as Scorpius lands almost in his lap, half-sprawled against him, uttering a punched-out, bemused sound. They’re all limbs for a moment until Albus gets them settled, and then he stares at Scorpius’s cheekbone so he can’t get too flustered as he veers into vaguely uncomfortable emotional territory.

“I’m not that good at this stuff,” Albus says, his voice quiet, and Scorpius goes still. Waiting and listening. “Saying what I feel - it doesn’t come easy for me, not like it does for you. But I told you before, didn't I? Everything else might change, but you’re always going to be my best friend. Even with other stuff between us, y’know, you’ll still be my best friend.”

Scorpius’s face lights up slowly, warmth shining in his eyes. The worry is gone, replaced by something soft and almost reverent that Albus shies away from. Scorpius puts a hand briefly on Albus’s cheek before he can turn away and kisses him slowly before drawing back.

“You’re mine too. And it looks like you don’t need Barley around to do your inspiring speeches after all.”

Albus rolls his eyes, but he can’t help but grin. And then the grin vanishes into something much warier as Scorpius wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. Albus snorts again at this ridiculous boy as Scorpius settles more comfortably into his lap, arms wrapped around his neck.

“Now, what was this other stuff, as you so charmingly put it?”

Albus can feel his face heat up, but he decides to play along. He clears his throat and attempts to put on some kind of sultry voice, like he’s seen Jamie do at the drop of a hat. “I could demonstrate, if you like?”

His voice cracks in the middle, and he’s sure he looks awkwardly pained. Scorpius’s mouth twitches, and Albus sighs. _Note to self,_ he thinks dryly, as Scorpius starts to laugh, shaking in his arms, _don't emulate your brother when you’re trying to be seductive._

Trust James to somehow humiliate him even from inside his own head.

Scorpius is still laughing, one hand mashed over his mouth to stifle the sounds. Albus jabs him in the ribs, which does nothing to stop the laughter.

“Don't laugh at me, or I’ll put all the crumbs on your side of the bed.”

His threat is waylaid by a series of quick kisses, marred by a grin but nonetheless sweet. Scorpius pulls back slightly to grin down at him softly.

“I’m not laughing at you, I promise,” Scorpius says, tucking himself in closer. “We can practice the… talking. Both kinds. Please don't pour crumbs in our bed.”

“It would only be on your side,” Albus mutters, but he shrugs and leans up for another kiss.  

  


**Author's Note:**

> I really want to revisit this world, because there's a lot that isn't quite tied up, like Scorpius's job and where they go from here and whether Barley stays as obnoxious as he is right now. I also want to explore Hud, and everyone else's heart-gardens! I might come back to it if people like it enough. Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! I'd love to hear from you if you did! <3


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